December 11, 2016 Tournament Results

On a cool and wet Sunday, 5 of us gathered at Circa 33 to play our last Second Sunday tournament of 2016. Five people being a small-ish turnout, Rob suggested a round robin format.

We had two newcomers – Julie and Ben – who comported themselves quite well. There’s a slightly unusual situation in the results, because in the final round, Rob and Julie called it quits when they were at 2 games apiece – Rob was down for the night and out of the running, and Julie locked in for second place, and it was getting late. So I scored each of them as getting 1/2 a match for that one. Reminder that since Julie and Ben were new, they start at an Elo score of 1500. And our rules are that in a round robin tournament, the winner of a match can walk away with up to 4 points, for instance if they win a gammon in the final game. Results were as follows:

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Total

Mark

2

4

4

4

14

Rob

0

0

0

2

2

Paul

3

0

0

2

5

Julie

3

3

3

2

11

Ben

0

4

3

0

7

Player

Initial Elo Rating

Matches Played

Matches Won

Final Elo Rating

Mark

1608.4

4

3

1617.33

Julie

1500.0

4

3.5

1513.78

Ben

1500.0

4

2

1501.66

Rob

1501.3

4

0.5

1465.42

Paul

1460.8

4

1

1441.79

I took a couple of positions in my match with Paul because I wanted to check them against the computer. Both were doubling decisions, positions where I in fact did offer Paul the cubes. In the images below, I’m black. First one was in our first game, I had him on the bar and felt like this was a little aggressive. Would you offer the cube? If you were red and offered the cube, would you take?

GnuBG says this is a good double, and a pass for red. Paul did in fact pass.

Second position was similar, in that Paul was on the bar again. Keep in mind that this time, he’s down a game.

This one also felt aggressive, and in fact it is too early to double. Paul properly took, and redoubled me a few moves later – which is proper. Down 1-0 in a match to 3, if you own the cube it does you little good to hold it. However wise Paul was in his handling of the cube, though, I did manage to hold on to win the game.